Some people attempting to book a driving test have had to wait over an hour to log in to the Road Safety Authority (RSA) website amid “particularly high levels of traffic”.
When attempting to access the site in recent days, users have been notified they are in a queue “due to exceptional demand”. In some cases, people have been told their estimated wait time is more than an hour.
One person who attempted to log in to the site described the wait time as “ridiculous”.
A spokesman for the RSA said the organisation has “experienced particularly high levels of traffic to the booking system” in recent weeks following efforts to tackle the backlog of people waiting to take their driving tests.
“This has led to intermittent delays for some users, especially during peak times which we appreciate can be frustrating,” he said.
The spokesman noted that most people are able to log in and complete their booking within an average of 10 minutes.
“However, this can vary depending on a number of factors and variables – including the time of day, the level of traffic on the site, internet connectivity and the device being used,” he said.
The spokesman added that the RSA’s current focus is on “reducing waiting times and delivering additional capacity” for driving tests, but there are also plans in place to “upgrade the booking platform and IT infrastructure once service levels have sufficiently reduced and stabilised”.
As of May, around 100,000 learners were waiting to sit their driving test with many people waiting several months to get an appointment.
The RSA recently launched an action plan to reduce this wait time to 10 weeks by early September 2025.
Measures announced under the action plan include hiring more testers, setting up new driving test centres in key areas to bring the national total to 60 centres, and expanding testing times from 7.25am to 7pm.
[ Driving test logjam: how to beat the long waiting timesOpens in new window ]
The action plan also notes there will be “targeted manual intervention in the booking system to ensure invitations are issued to areas of greatest demand to ensure more efficient slot allocation”.
On Thursday, the RSA said a fall in the average national waiting time for a driving test to just under 21 weeks was “encouraging early progress”.
The average wait was 20.6 weeks as of May 31st, down from 21.4 the previous week, which the RSA said was “significantly ahead of the forecasted 25 weeks”.
It said the reduction reflected the “pace and focus” with which the RSA had been implementing targeted measures.
The waiting time for those booking a driving test varies significantly depending on location, with Tallaght currently having the longest estimated wait time of about 36 weeks.
